Media content, including VOD and TV programming, has traditionally been delivered to viewers over legacy cable and satellite broadcast systems. More recently, various streaming video platforms have been introduced by media content providers and gained widespread commercial adoption; the term “media content provider,” as appearing herein, encompassing all types of media content sources, aggregators, and the like from which content-containing digital or analog signals can be obtained for viewing on user devices. The term “media content providers” thus encompasses cable, satellite, and OTT TV providers, as well as entities owning or operating streaming video platforms. It is also now commonplace for end users to placeshift media content stored in memory contained in or accessible to a home media receiver, such as an STB located at the end user's residence, over a network for viewing on a smartphone, tablet, or other portable media receiver operated by the end user.
Generally, the various options for delivery of media content have greatly increased user convenience in selecting and viewing different types of media content. Concurrently, the wide variety and number of such media content providers have also rendered it increasingly difficult for end users to effectively maintain awareness of all media content available for viewing at any particular juncture in time. This is particularly true as certain media content items (e.g., movies or episodic series) are initially availed for viewing by one or more media content providers, but not others. Consequently, when media content desirably viewed by an end user initially becomes available via cable, satellite, or OTT TV broadcast, there exists an undesirably high likelihood that the end user may inadvertently miss the premiere showing of the newly-broadcast media content. Similarly, an end user may be unaware when media content, which is of interest to the end user, initially becomes available for viewing on a particular streaming video platform. As a still further possibility, an end user may become aware that media content is impending removal from a streaming video platform only following removal of the media content. This is particularly problematic as media content providers operating streaming video platforms, such as NETFLIX®, tend to introduce a substantial amount of new content each month, while removing other content at various intervals throughout the month.
There thus exists an ongoing demand for devices and methods for enhancing user awareness of time-sensitive (soon-to-be-released, newly-available, and/or soon-to-be-removed) media content, which is of interest to end users. Ideally, such devices and methods would provide intuitive and useful tools for generating reminder notifications advising end users of changes in the availability of such time-sensitive media content and, perhaps, providing related functionalities allowing end users to customize the notifications and/or take other actions decreasing the likelihood of an end user missing or becoming unable to view content of interest. Other desirable features and characteristics of embodiments of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent Detailed Description and the appended Claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing Background.